Time for bi-partisan superman, John Carney, to file a discharge petition

Twenty house Republicans are on record saying that they would vote for a clean CR. John Boehner will not bring it up for a vote, but that creates a perfect moment for bi-partisan superman, John Carney, to save the country with his amazing friendship building skills. Carney has spent his entire time in congress honing these relationships, so he should be able to make just a few calls and get this done. After all, we continuously hear how important is is to create bi-partisan comity in the house by sucking up the frauds and charlatans on the other side of the isle - now is the moment for all that servile boot-licking to pay off.
In Which We Find Delmarva Power Using Ratepayers For Capital Financing

In Which We Find Delmarva Power Using Ratepayers For Capital Financing

Or, Delmarva wants its ratepayers to take on more of the risk of capital project construction while they retain the profits from the use of that project.  Via the NJ, they are touting this as an innovative rate approach -- one that will allow customers some stability in their bills for a few years:
Under Delmarva’s new plan, the utility and the PSC would agree upon Delmarva’s spending ahead of time, planning four years into the future. Delmarva officials call the plan innovative, saying they are unaware of any other arrangement like this at comparable electric utilities around the country. Delmarva officials say the plan would give regulators more input into the utility’s spending before it happens. “I think it’s a better process when you all work together on a plan,” said Glenn Moore, Delmarva’s regional vice president. The plan would reduce what the utility calls “regulatory lag” – the time between when Delmarva spends money, and when the PSC approves Delmarva getting the money back from customers, along with a profit margin.
So. Delmarva charges you more and puts the excess in the bank to fund some future capital spending project.
Something I Hadn’t Noticed Until Now…

Something I Hadn’t Noticed Until Now…

... but, where is Vice President Biden? He had been central to prior negotiations in 2011 with the Republican Default Crisis and with the 2012 Fiscal Cliff. In those deals, he was the peacemaker and dealmaker. He is being kept off canvas now, but not for the obvious reason: so that he could be brought in for another dealmaking opportunity. No, there is another reason....

A Republican Congresswoman needs her paycheck

I presume she was responding to a question as to why she is being paid during this shutdown when hundreds of thousands of federal employees, such as those Capitol police officers who protected her so bravely today, are not. She needs her paycheck. Pardon my profanity, but why the fuck does she think those police officers do not need theirs? Seriously, fuck her.
Republican Shutdown Open Thread, Day 3

Republican Shutdown Open Thread, Day 3

This, from Esquire's Charles Pierce, is a classic:
In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress -- a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party's 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed [Tuesday]. We have elected the people sitting on hold, waiting for their moment on an evening drive-time radio talk show. We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government.
Foxtail Highlights Wilmington’s Ethics Problem

Foxtail Highlights Wilmington’s Ethics Problem

Monday night's marathon hearing of the City Council Joint Committees turned out to be the longest Council Meeting ever. You'll recall that this meeting was convened to probe how it happened that the City paid for WPD, WFD and Public Works resources used at the Foxtail Festival. I was there until about 10PM, so missed some of the later testimony. It was demoralizing sitting through this -- between the deflection attempts by Velda Jones-Potter, the disregard of the City's Ethics policy by pretty much everyone including members of City Council and the clear lack of command and control within the Administration. The meeting room was standing room only and many of them came sporting safety orange shirts. Not sure what the shirts were meant to do -- for a minute it looked like I had stumbled into a convention of the traffic safety folks that wave you through traffic at construction zones.
A different kind of temper tantrum

A different kind of temper tantrum

You know when your toddler throws a temper tantrum because you told him or her that they cannot have something they want, like a toy or something random in the super market? And then there are times when they just freak out for no fucking reason discernible to any thinking rational person? Nothing calms them. They don't know what they want. They want something, and they are furious about not getting it, they just don't know what it is. Obviously, Republicans are acting like petulant children having a temper tantrum. That is not in dispute by anyone with an IQ above 5. But I thought it was because we Democrats and the President told the Republicans they could not have something they really really wanted. But now...